IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings - Web 2.0

VoIP Considerations for IT Decision-makers

Tue, 27 May 2008 12:59:27 +0000

There was an article in Processor Magazine that starts to address some points that should be taken under consideration for IT managers looking at packetized communications for their Enterprise. Below are the highlights and my thoughts:

Look For SIP Support
I couldn’t agree more! SIP is a protocol used to establish, teardown, modify, etc communication sessions. It’s very diverse and relatively simple when compared to past mechanisms. Most importantly, it has become the defacto standard within the world of telephony. There’s native SIP support in nearly all the major vendors that supply VoIP gear. (Cisco, Avaya, Siemens, Microsoft)

Consider The Benefits Of Hosted PBX
This topic has be discussed numerous times in the past, and even before that within a TDM context (PBX vs. Centrex). The thing that’s different within an IP context is the feature and functionality available. When comparing a PBX to a Centrex offering, one key difference was additional feature and functionality in a PBX. Centrex offerings didn’t have the same "whiz-bang" features. In today’s Hosted Telephony offerings, there’s near feature parity, so the key determining factor becomes cost of ownership.

Think Unified Communications
VoIP (or Telephony) MUST be seen as a stepping stone to the ultimate goal of Unified Communications. IT managers should consider the roadmap to UC when choosing a Telephony solution. Real-time communications need to become multi-modal, meaning there should be options to transition communications from IM to voice to video to online collaboration on a document, and then back again - all within the same context and within a common look/feel.

Traversing NAT
Though the issue of Network Address Translation (NAT) is well known to negatively impact SIP sessions, the real point for consideration here for the IT Manager should be around considering the deployment of a Session Border Controller (SBC) within their Enterprise as part of an overall design.

Know & Apply Codecs
There are more ways to packetize voice and video communications than one can shake a stick at. The author points out the predominant technologies of G.711 and G.729. Issues of bandwidth consumption and quality of user’s experience must be balanced. Generally speaking, the more bandwidth consumed, the better the experience. But the more bandwidth used, the greater the cost to upgrade the LAN/WAN infrastructure to accommodate. If you skimp on cost, the result would be poor quality, and then adoption and experiences would suffer. It’s a delicate balancing game.

Some further comments captured in the article..

• Make sure to have 100k in bandwidth free and available for every conversation when determining whether the enterprise really has enough bandwidth for VoIP, according to Andy Abramson, blogger at VoIP Watch and founder and CEO of Comunicano (www.comunicano.com). With this understanding, it’s easy to see that DSL or a cable modem line won’t cut it.

• Get VoIP phones that are both wired for Ethernet and wireless for Wi-Fi connectivity, notes Abramson. “That way, people can wander, and all internal calls within the building are free of charge because they stay on the network.”

• “Make sure the vendor is going to be around to support the purchase,” Abramson says. An older vendor with roots, commitments, and financial means is an obvious choice. A new vendor with strong management, skills, and reputation who proves out through considered research can also be a sharp choice.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don't necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

IVR Hell Solved

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:33:11 +0000

I think everyone has at least one horror story about navigating through an Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) menu over the phone. You know what I am referring to...those “Press one for this, press two for that”. One example of the miserable part about these systems is when you have to listen through the entire thing only to find out that the option you need isn’t an option at all –OR- when someone (usually my kids) talks to you during the recording and you miss some options (most likely the one that you needed!), so you have to listen to the entire announcement again. This, my friends, is IVR hell. Well I just stumbled upon a company that is addressing IVR hell head on, and with a whole bunch of ingenuity mind you…

Fonolo has created a novel concept. They have transcribed the menu prompts of the major destinations – meaning they created a visual tree of the IVR menu structure, and you can navigate it online via clicking through the options. Then you input all the information necessary. Once all the inputs are registered by Fonolo from you, then Fonolo will place the call and automatically get you to the point that you need to be in the IVR menu. This point may end up being on hold for a human, but just think of all the time you have saved just getting to that point.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don't necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

IMPORTANT!!! SIP 4.0 defined.

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:30:33 +0000

Click here for the SIP 4.0 IETF Draft!

Be sure to note date of posting...

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don't necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

SIP Decentralizing Enterprise Communications

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:09:03 +0000

Of the more interesting developments that are emerging as SIP technologies and products mature is the changing context that Enterprises’ IT organizations operate in. Historically, telecommunications has been defined and provided to the marketplace by Service Providers like Global Crossing, Level 3, BT, etc. The requirements needed to formulate an offering were provided by SPs to the manufacturers of the platforms (Cisco, Juniper, etc). Things are changing rapidly on this front though. Enterprises in some cases are bigger in many aspects of the definition than some smaller traditionally defined Service Providers. In my humble opinion, this warrants of new definition of the Enterprise. The Enterprise is the newest category of a Service Provider.

With regards to SIP, there is ample evidence of its adoption in the Enterprise marketplace and vendors that have catered directly to Enterprises have taken heed. As examples, see Microsoft’s, Siemens’, Cisco’s, Avaya’s adoption of SIP in their product portfolios.

The impact of this is an overall decentralization of the Enterprise communications environment that leads to a more collaborative workforce. If you need some examples, think of the IM communications in support of standard telephony and email infrastructures. Nowadays in our MS OCS/Exchange environment at Global Crossing, when I read an email – I not only have the ability to reply, but IM or click to call in response. This is all handled via a single user interface. This form of collaboration is _NOT_ dependant on the traditional services that Global Crossing provides. (with the exception of the underlying IP transport), but rather the infrastructure is supported by our internal IT department. By the way, this is all decentralization is enabled with SIP.

Adam “voiploser” Uzelac

DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don’t necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

The Value of Presence ? That is the question.

Mon, 05 May 2008 13:13:38 +0000

While visiting with several individuals a few weeks ago at the Ziff Davis Unified Communications Summit in Seattle, WA I noticed that some people hadn't yet realized the power of one aspect to the overall value of unified communications which relates to presence awareness. That is leveraging presence not just in instant messaging but in other communication vehicles can play an important role in transforming your business impact as an IT organization. As a result I thought I would dedicate this post to help create ideas around things that can be done to assist in helping IT in leading the way.

Here at Global Crossing in an attempt to leverage this core components of Unified Communications in an ongoing effort to incorporate the advantages of collaborative, converged services within our enterprise we've transformed internal applications from static non presence aware to anticipatory engaged communication tools that are supporting contextual collaboration with presence-awareness throughout the enterprise. In this instance presence-awareness (whether someone is available in simple terms and how to contact) is utilizing capabilities including chat, computer-based telephony, conferencing, IP video, and e-mail across tools that leveraged across the enterprise drive in principle more efficacy from consumption and corresponding execution. In fact it is my opinion that since presence has been embedded into our application infrastructure to enhance our collaborative capabilities it is natural to see transformational improvements occur around our "quality of experience" associated to the overall user experience. This is so because enabling enhanced customer experience truly enables the IT organization to drive one more component to our IT organizations transformational success in enabling the business to not only "react" but be proactive by achieving extensibility required within the distribution transparency model required for execution. Said another way the fact that presence awareness has been integrated into our application infrastructure means this action will further enhance our agility to enhance operational efficiency by allowing application "pivots" to be present thus accelerating communication by eliminating in some instances serial cognitive task execution.

As the industry landscape continues to evolve there are a few constants that will remain the same: (1) increasing business demands require more innovative, transformational capabilities between employees, partners and customers and (2) continually driving operational velocity reductions around the cost basis of delivering information technology services is imperative. It is commonly believed by many vendors such as Avaya, Cisco, Intel, Nortel and Siemens as well as software developers such as IBM and Microsoft that presence technology will continue to become an increasingly important tool at driving traditional costs out by attacking the serial nature of traditional work execution thus increasing operational efficiency.

So why is presence so important to Unified Communication services? Presence is important because it can become the intelligent communication application for converged IP communication services such as those demonstrated by our IT organization at Global Crossing. Determining where a user is and how best to reach them in our case by leveraging presence enabled applications that have been integrated into our infrastructure with the "glue" to increase the overall value of our converged IP services brought to the table and help realize substantial business transformation value.Said another way presence-aware applications offered on a converged IP communication service help evolve traditional serial actions of quickly determining and thus engaging with employees regardless of location, modality or scheduling which allows our globally dispersed users to communicate and collaborate in real time providing productivity in a truly global and mobile workforce environment. Combined converged IP communication services with presence technology provide for accelerated collaboration between our employees, partners and customers by knocking down the walls of traditional serial communications and by accelerating communication through anticipatory engagement.

Presence is the value.

Google’s Impact on the Wireless Internet

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:02:28 +0000

Google’s Impact on the Wireless Internet

In case you missed the announcement last week, Google has tossed it’s hat into the ring for the last remaining commercially viable wireless spectrum in the US. The 700MHz spectrum was used to provide analog TV service and becomes available to the highest bidder on January 24th, 2008. The impact of Google’s announcement is yet unknown, but should prove to be very important in the long run.

Some interesting datapoints:

• From Wikipedia - Several countries, including the UK, now have more mobile phones than people. There are over five hundred million active mobile phone accounts in China, as of 2007. Luxembourg has the highest mobile phone penetration rate in the world, at 164% in December 2001. In Hong Kong the penetration rate reached 139.8% of the population in July 2007. The total number of mobile phone subscribers in the world was estimated at 2.14 billion in 2005. The subscriber count reached 2.7 billion by end of 2006 according to Informa[citation needed], and 3.3 billion by November, 2007, thus reaching an equivalent of over half the planet's population. Around 80% of the world's population enjoys mobile phone coverage as of 2006. This figure is expected to increase to 90% by the year 2010.

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Now allow me to pluck the germane data from the above for my point. Phone = 3.3 BILLION - Computers = 1.25 Billion. Google already enjoys dominance for eyes in the computer space, and if they are as successful on wireless phones as they are with PCs, watch out world!

The problem Google currently has with wireless devices, especially in the US, is the locked-down nature of the device to the wireless network operator. It’s actually a sad commentary that Google has to forge ahead with buying spectrum, but it makes all the sense in the world. Boy is it interesting watching the impacts to the industry. Check out Verizon Wireless’ announcement about opening up their network to devices. Don’t think for a second that these two announcements are unrelated. They couldn’t be more tied to the hip.

All this guy has to say is, “Good on ya, Google!”

Adam “voiploser” Uzelac
DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don’t necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

Demo fall 2007

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:31:48 +0000

Demo fall 2007

So I was wondering around the blogosphere last night and stumbled across an announcement regarding a company called Tungle. They recently won the "DEMOgod" award from demo.com. Demo.com is a conference for emerging Web 2.0 companies. The conference permits invited emerging companies to pitch a 6 minute demo of their product to journalist, bloggers, etc. The conference was this week (Sept 24-27) in San diego. The footage of all the demos are available on their website.

Below is a list of the demos I thought were particularly interesting. So go grab some popcorn and a drink of your choice, and check them out at demo.com and click on demofall07 to launch the viewer.

MY FAVORITE!! -> 360 Desktop - desktop real estate extender. This is amazing! <- MY FAVORITE!!
DimDim - free and open source webmeeting alternative.
Earthmine - Geographic 3d visualizing.
Jasper Wireless - "local" SIM - targeting machine communications.
LiveMocha - A new approach to language learning.
SpceTime - 3d browser.
Talari Networks - Enterprise WAN alternative.
Truphone - just created VoIP client for iPhone.
Tubes Networks - a way to share files with others - P2P software.
Yuuguu - collaboration software.
Tungle - Meeting scheduling plugin.
Vello - conference call advancement - outbound calls to all participants.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac
DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don't necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

Virtualization – Part 2 - The Abstraction of the Computer

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:16:06 +0000

Here's the second part of our Virtualization series and a continuation of Virtualization - Part 1 – The Abstraction of the Internet.

A computer consists of several key elements that along with software (and firmware) provide useful applications like the browser you are using to read this blog from our web servers.

Here are some of the items that are noteworthy:

Central Processing Unit (CPU) – aka Pentium for you wintel folks, is the heart of the computer and executes instructions (software or firmware) that are programmed by a software engineer.

Input/Output Devices – Provides a method to enter , display or share information from the computer, for example: Display, keyboard, mouse.

Random Access Memory (RAM) – Is memory that is accessed by the CPU which losses its contents when you remove power. RAM (Typically) is the fastest memory that a CPU and “read” or “write”.

Disk Drive – Is memory that is also accessed by the CPU which doesn’t lose its contents when you remove power. Disks are slower than RAM.

Flash Memory – Is like RAM but has the characteristics of a disk drive.

Data Bus – Depending on the CPU (8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit or 64 bits wide) is where the CPU can read or write data from or to the various memory devices, Input/Output devices. Each bit is a “1” or “0”.

Address Bus – Also dependent on the CPU , this is where the CPU (using bits) selects the location in memory to read or write data.

Firmware – aka BIOS for wintel folks, is software that is used to “boot” (restart from a known state) the computer that resides in Flash memory or a Programmable Read Only Memory (PROM).

Software – eg Office.

Operating System – eg Windows, is a layer of software that abstracts the hardware and controls the overall operation of the computer.

Networks – Are communication systems that allow computers to share information.

Programming Languages – A CPU can only understand binary (“1” or “0” s) for the instructions it executes. There are various instructions to read , write, add, multiply, subtract , divide and move data. However, Humans need to abstract the instructions into words to make it easier. These languages define the way words are used forming a grammer (just like English or Spanish) . The first form of languages are assembler languages which are specific to a CPU and not portable, the subsequent languages like C, C++, FORTRAN, Pascal provided more functionality with Database languages like 3GL, 4GL etc..

A computer can be a main frame, a desktop or your laptop which were confined to a area (room, your desk or your lap).

Advances in networking have provided efficient methods of distributing the CPU from Disks, Input/Output devices.

Storage Area Networks are clusters of disk drives that are no longer directly connected to the computer using the various buss’s described above. This is a key level of abstraction which has allowed distributed computing to evolve into GRID computing where the software is one place, the CPUs in another and memory in yet another. Distributed computing provides more efficient use of computing at unparalleled level of disaster recovery.

Why is this important?

Computing has and will continue to be the mother of invention for advances not only in the hardware or software but also in the networks that connect everything together like the Internet or also an Enterprise VPN.

More later :

Virtualization – Part 3 - The Abstraction of Applications
Concepts of a Application Programmers Interface (API), examples and pitfalls for APIs and the abstraction of Web Services.

Apple Newton - back from the dead?

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:35:14 +0000

Could it be possible? Now here's a rumor that's worth spreading. Apple is thinking about reviving the Newton brand. Russell Shaw, over at ZD-Net is reporting that there might be some truth to this rumor.

Here is part of the article...
Apple Insider’s take in part:

Externally, the multi-touch PDA has been described by sources as an ultra-thin “slate” akin to the iPhone, about 1.5 times the size and sporting an approximate 720×480 high-resolution display that comprises almost the entire surface of the unit. The device is further believed to leverage multi-touch concepts which have yet to gain widespread adoption in Apple’s existing multi-touch products — the iPhone and iPod touch — like drag-and-drop and copy-and-paste."

Stay tuned for more on this one. All I can say is that Apple might be pushing this limits of what their brand can handle if this is true.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don't necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

7 easy ways to use VoIP

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 20:23:32 +0000

7 easy ways to use VoIP

1) Setup a Skype account and get Skype-in/Skype-out.

2) Setup a Gizmo account at SIPphone.

3) Get a Google account

4) Setup yourself with a Grand Central Account(owned by Google)

5) Get a Dual-mode wireless phone.

6) Install Fring on the dual-mode phone.

7) Associate all numbers from Skype, Gizmo, Wireless phone, deskphone, etc to your Grand Central number, and publish your Grand Central Number.

This is what you get from all this:

INBOUND CALLING: When someone dials your Grand Central number, all the associated numbers in your Grand Central profile will ring simultaneously. You have your choice which phone to answer with. You also have the ability to "move" the call or "switch" the call from one device to another associated device. It's the coolest thing - all you do is press the '*' key and all the phones start ringing again. You just pick up another phone and hang up on the phone you are moving from. There are also loads of other features with Grand Central. It's just great!!!

OUTBOUND CALLING: The selection device when placing a call to someone else is normally dictated by your location at the time you are making the call. If you are in a car, then wireless is really all you get due to availability. If you are in an area that has wifi service that works with your dual-mode phone (like an airport or coffee shop), then Fring is your friend because you can use numerous options. If you are in the office with your choice, then use the phone or network of your choice. If I know that I am about to leave the office, I might take the call on my cell. If I am about to settle in to a marathon of conference calls, then it's desk phone with speaker or head-phones on.

VoIP works and VoIP is mainstream nowadays.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don't necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

Web Services Catching on in Telecom?

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:42:54 +0000

OK, so Web Services has been around for some time now. XML and SOAP have been used as an easy to implement mechanism to serve as an API for distributed applications. However, only until the last year or so has web services come to the forefront of telecom services, and I believe it will be used as a foundation for many innovative solutions that will be built under the Unified Communications/Integrated Communications umbrella.

VoIP has traditionally been relegated to basic telephony services in the telecom industry, such as VoIP/SIP Trunking and Hosted IP Telephony services. However, with the advent of Unified Communications (check out the Unified Communications Conference at the Fall VON Show in October), which brings together telephony, messaging, collaboration, data and mobility into an integrated solution, we begin to see services using VoIP as becoming more visual in nature, bringing telephony into web interfaces rather than to phones, and using multiple distributed applications which are blended to create solutions.

Global Crossing has announced that it is providing innovative Unified Communications solutions to the UK Government. These services will soon be expanded to provide even greater capabilities to the Enterprise, and globalization is a key element of this strategy.

Does this mean IMS? Not necessarily. Many solutions in the market have built interoperability through vendor partnerships using SIP from a voice signaling perspective, and Web Services brings another element into the mix which greatly improves interoperability and improves usability. IMS is not nearly as innovative as Web Services, and certainly not as easily implemented. However, IMS can be combined with Web Services to anchor control, signaling, and provisioning of multiple applications in a standardized fashion. My belief is that it will take the industry some time to pull everything together using IMS.

As an example of how web services can be introduced into telephony, clients can be built into web pages using internet API's which use click to call functionality. In addition, web services can be used in a unified communications "Dashboard" interface where a user can view presence status, conference attendance, manage services through voice portals, and trigger entirely new communications business models. Two innovating vendors highly leveraging web services in the telecom space are Sylantro and Iperia, which bring call control and management extended to web communications, and provide visual voicemail and unified messaging services as a solution. Very cool stuff.

Web Services brings easy programming interfaces to industry standard transport (HTTP) to bring innovation to telecom services. As enterprises become more distributed in nature, with remote offices in multiple countries, their key workers are also becoming more distributed and mobile. Telecom needs to keep up with these trends and the increading demand for requirements of the changing workplace with real time communications. This is bringing traditionally separate applications together via Unified Communications, and the "unification" or blending of these distributed applications can use a combination of signaling techniques and web services functions to bring a highly visual element to the solution.

Ready for a scary thing? Deep Packet Inspection!

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 18:57:49 +0000

According to Wikipedia Deep Packet Inspection is “a form of computer network packet filtering that examines the data part of a through-passing packet, searching for non-protocol compliance or predefined criteria to decide if the packet can pass. This is in contrast to shallow packet inspection (usually called just packet inspection) which just checks the header portion of a packet.”

First off, this is a very real technology. A quick search via google brought the company Bivio Networks to my attention. (* Disclaimer: I have no interest, financial or otherwise with this company.) Bivio’s 7000 series claims that
“when fully configured, the 7000's application processing subsystem offers 45,000 MIPS -- enough to run "any IP network service" at wire speeds up to 10Gbps -- including IDS/IDP, firewalling, VPN, network surveillance, lawful interception, and application traffic management. Developers can use any of the standard Linux components (such as iptables) as part of their deep packet processing applications.

Now let’s look at some of the implications of DPI. A very interesting article on here from ars technica puts things in an interesting light:

“Imagine a device that sits inline in a major ISP's network and can throttle P2P traffic at differing levels depending on the time of day. Imagine a device that allows one user access only to e-mail and the Web while allowing a higher-paying user to use VoIP and BitTorrent. Imagine a device that protects against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, scans for viruses passing across the network, and siphons off requested traffic for law enforcement analysis. Imagine all of this being done in real time, for 900,000 simultaneous users, and you get a sense of the power of deep packet inspection (DPI) network appliances.
Although the technology isn't yet common knowledge among consumers, DPI already gives network neutrality backers nightmares and enables American ISPs to comply with CALEA (government-ordered Internet wiretaps) reporting requirements. It also just might save the Internet (depending on who you believe). “
The power of this technology is simply awesome, and the impacts it can have are serious. The current state of government mandated network monitoring forces some network operators to consider implementing this. One word jumps to my mind, and that’s SCARY – and I am not referring to my driver’s license picture either!

By the way, did I mention that the above Bivio 7000 is listed at $10,000!

The Seven Wonders of Telecommunications

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:55:52 +0000

The Seven Wonders of Telecommunications

This is a post that was inspired by the latest poll results on the latest Seven Wonders of the World. In case you missed the list: The final tally produced this list of the world's top human-built wonders: Link here

· The Great Wall of China
· Petra in Jordan
· Brazil's statue of Christ the Redeemer
· Peru's Machu Picchu
· Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid
· The Colosseum in Rome
· India's Taj Mahal

I created this list with telecommunications as the focus, and the criteria involved technologies and products that had the broadest and most significant impact to telecommunications.

1) The telephone - I believe this should fall in the “Ya think?!?!” category. Humans have an insatiable urge to communicate, and the phone was the first and most significant step to communications across a significant (beyond yelling) distance. I will say that, at times, yelling can be more effective though. ;)

2) The modem – Here I am referring to the Hayes Communications “Smartmodem” that became the standard for digital communications across an analog network (POTS)

3) TCP/IP – The Internet protocol suite. With the importance of the Internet, this is more/less a no-brainer.

4) SIP – Session Initiation Protocol has won out as the defacto standard for Voice over IP and its associated applications.

5) Ethernet – The reason Ethernet is listed here is simply due to its simplicity. The LAN standard just isn’t difficult to understand and use. With Ethernet creeping into the WAN as well, things are getting bigger, faster and less expensive.

6) WIFI – This article here explains it all. WIFI more important than Starbucks coffee?!?!? That puts is on the list of seven!!

7) Asterisk – I am putting this open-source IP-PBX due to the fact that it single-handedly exposed the craziness in IP-PBX pricing models. It’s better, fast, and a whole heck of a lot cheaper. This would need to get some more maturity before it made the “all-time” list.

Adam “voiploser” Uzelac

Google buying Grand Central

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:11:49 +0000

While enjoying my morning coffee and skimming the headlines from the weekend, it appears that TechCrunch broke the story yesterday that Grand Central is being bought by Google.

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If you aren't knowing what Grand Central is, allow me to priovide a quick run-down. The entire concept is built around the 1-number ideal. Here are some of the features: (from their website)

Screen Callers
Know who's calling and screen unknown callers

ListenIn
Hear why someone is calling before taking the call

Call Record
Record calls on the fly and access recordings online

Block Callers
Unwanted callers won't be able to reach you anymore

Notifications
Receive voicemail notifications via email or SMS

Ring Different Phones
One number that rings different phones based on who's calling

Greetings
Personalize your voicemail greetings by caller or group

RingShare
Go beyond the ring and choose ringback tones for your callers

WebCall Button
Let people call you from a web page without showing your number

CallSwitch
Switch phones in the middle of a call

Click2Call
Call from your addressbook and save your typing

Mobile Access
Visual voicemail for your mobile phone

So why is Google interested in Grand Central? Well think of the possibilities if you combine the above services with gmail and gtalk?!?!? It looks to me that Google is going to be taking Skype on head-first.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

I Approve This Message

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:59:34 +0000

Mesaging is undoubtedly the fasted growing method of e-communication in the industry today, spanning both consumer and enterprise segments. In the wireless industry alone, the statistics on text messaging volume are staggering. CTIA's president Steve Largent was quoted as saying that 158 billion text messages were sent in the U.S. alone in 2006, translating to approximately 300,000 per minute, which is almost a 100% growth compared to 2005. He also notes that consumers can use text messaging to save lives. Huh? Well, Amber Alerts is now wireless, so you can receive text message with the Amber Alert information (that is displayed on digital signage) when one occurs, provided you submit your mobile phone number and area zip codes. BTW, I encourage everyone to sign up for this. The reason? We all look at a text message when we receive one, and most of the time we respond to it. This is a very viral form of communication, and an extremely high margin service; up to 85% in some cases. Combine this with Instant Messaging, and the transactional volumes far exceed voice by a huge margin.

Aside of the convenience and trendiness aspects of SMS, texting is also very cost effective. When users are low on their cell phone minutes, they often resort to sending text. Also, due to excessive roaming costs, sending text messages is a way of avoiding expensive voice roaming and ILD rates from the mobile operators.

Identity-based services are a unique way to bridge communications between the wireless and wireline worlds. Many innovative service providers are creating offerings which provide a single number (or second line) to the external community, but which allow the subscriber to manage inbound calling to various destinations (mobile, home phone, work phone, etc.). GrandCentral and TalkPlus are two such providers of this service. This identity is can be enabled through a VoIP DID-based carrier such as Global Crossing, which provides phone numbers and voice origination and termination capabilities. Unique solutions like this are rapidly growing in the industry and are likely to continue, bringing voice beyond basic peer to peer dialing.

Another innovative use of identity based services is one where the purpose is to hide the true identity of the called party. Jangl provides such an application to Match.com which enables dating prospects to communicate with each other without having to know each other's phone number. Obviously, you don't want to advertise your phone number to what seems to be a decent date but who turns out to be an obsessive nut job. Again, a powerful use of application-based communication.

Applications such as this can leverage more than just voice. Text messaging can also be applied just as easy (if not easier) to these identity services, which opens up a powerful enabler and revenue opportunity. In fact, most users with a mobile phone expect SMS to be a supplementary service, even when using a service such as one of those above.

Text messaging has, and will continue to be a key communication service requirement coupled with voice. Wireline has some catching up to do, but you can expect some very innovative additions to enable messaging services to continue to be an essential component of the converged services equation. Expect more from Global Crossing. Stay tuned.....